...That will handle printers, external drives. I don’t have enough ports on my 2017 iMac, and no hub I’ve tried will connect printer or hard drives or super drive or external monitor. I get the message that those things have to be connected directly to the Mac. I’m Playing “musical ports” all day long.
iMac 27" 5K, macOS 10.15
FWIW, a SuperDrive has to be plugged directly into a USB port. As far as other peripherals, I have a couple hubs, one powered, one not and I can plug various things into each. If a drive is powered it can be plugged into a non-powered hub. otherwise it has to be a powered hub. It really depends on a number of factors.
All good advice here. I will now only use a powered hub. I have found that I can plug virtually anything into it and it will work. With non powered hubs, some things such as printers often will not work. That is why some devices say they must be plugged directly into the Mac. With a powered hub, that seems to be not necessary.
There are options to connect external storage and mid- and upper-end printers to the network.
Examples of Network Attached Storage (NAS) include Synology NAS arrays and FreeNAS. Synology NAS also offers a variety of other network services and features beyond storage services, all provided from the NAS. As can FreeNAS. Examples of network-connected printers include the Brother MFC series, and similar models from other vendors.
Larger direct-attached storage on Mac often involves Thunderbolt storage, with the older first or second-generation Thunderbolt connectors, or with third-generation via the USB-C connector. Thunderbolt locally will be faster than NAS.
Promise Pegasus arrays are one of many examples of this.
Closer to what you’re asking for here, Satechi offers a chin dock for iMac, and there are many other sorts of docks around, many of which will work just fine with iMac and USB-A devices.
Accreting piles of USB-connected widgets tends not to scale, as you’re now discovering. (It’s better than it was too, as USB 3 is decently speedy, and power control has gotten better. Earlier USB was much slower.)
You should check the offerings at OWC | Macsales.
They've got a lot.
I have an expensive POWERED hub. It will work with my SuperDrive and my dymo postage printer. It will NOT work with my Epson printer, my additional (Dell) monitor, or my many big external drives.
FWIW, I have never been able to get a SuperDrive to work in a powered or non-powered hub. Including a "chin" Satechi dock I bought for my iMac Pro.
Have you tried it with a printer? A monitor? another hard drive?
Thanks for this info!!!!
Does anybody know of a wired usb hub that will..
